Set up muCommander

muCommander is a cross-platform file manager. These steps show how to configure and alter the tool to make it a better experience on macOS. The following steps will change the UI similar to the following:

muCommander UI

Add high-res icons

muCommander currently only has very low resolution icons, which look very pixelated, especially when increasing the icon size in the preferences. A fork provides higher resolution icons, which can replace the low-res icons:

  1. Extract highres_icons.zip into ~/Downloads.

  2. Execute this command (adapt the version number, here 1.0.1):

    macOS

    $ jar -uf /Applications/muCommander.app/Contents/app/app/mucommander-core-1.0.1.jar -C ~/Downloads/highres_icons images/action

    Windows

s+$jar -uf “%USERPROFILE%Program FilesmuCommanderappappmucommander-cor-1.0.1.jar -C %USERPROFILE%Downloadshighres_icons imagesaction”

Hint

The jar executable (jar.exe on Windows) is only available in Oracle JDK installations.

  1. (Re)start muCommander.

Add better dark theme

muCommander features a few themes, but the dark themes might to appease everyone. Luckily, additional themes can be imported.

  1. Download latest version of Flatlaf IntelliJ Themes from https://search.maven.org/search?q=a:flatlaf-intellij-themes.

  2. Open muCommander.

  3. Go to Preferences ‣ Appearance.

  4. Under Look & Feel, select Import and select flatlaf-intellij-themes-<SOME_VERSION>.jar.

  5. Select one of the newly added themes from the Look & Feel dropdown selection menu and apply it.

Custom theme settings

The file systems panes can also be altered and those settings can both be exported and imported. These steps apply a custom settings file via import which sets it to a dark tone.

  1. Open muCommander.

  2. Go to Preferences ‣ Appearance.

  3. Under ‘Theme’, select ‘Import’ and select custom_dark_theme_settings.xml.

  4. You may want to do adjustments manually.

  5. Close preferences with OK.

Switch to dark window bar

Note

These steps are not required on Windows.

To get a window bar, which matches the system theme, a new option must be passed when muCommander is launched.

  1. Open /Applications/muCommander.app/Contents/app/muCommander.cfg with a text editor.

  2. Add this line into the [JavaOptions] section:

    java-options=-Dapple.awt.application.appearance=system

  3. Save and close the file, then restart muCommander.

Change default text editor

muCommander comes with its own internal text editor, which offers little to none features, but is only useful for simplest text editing. You might want to set a different editor as default. Here, Visual Studio Code is set as the default, but any other editor can be used (just make sure it can be launched over the command line).

  1. Open ~/Library/Preferences/muCommander/commands.xml (or %USERPROFILE%\.mucommander\.commands.xml).

    Hint

    If the file is not available (is only created, when first deviation from default is set), create it, pasting in this content:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<commands>

</commands>

  2. Change the value of the edit alias to or add it between the commands tags

    macOS

    <command alias="edit" value="/usr/local/bin/code $f" type="system"/>

    Windows

    <command alias="edit" value="C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft VS Code\\Code.exe $f" type="system"/>

    Important

    It is mandatory to use double backslashes for Windows paths.

    Hint

    Add custom Open-With options

    In case you like to open a file in different editors, you may specify those as Open With options.

    1. Add them to the commands.xml file as well. Example:

    <command alias="Notepad++" value="notepad++ $f"/>
<command alias="Notepad" value="C:\\Windows\\notepad.exe $f"/>

    1. Reopen muCommander

    2. Select a file, right click and choose Open with… and your desired option.

    If muCommander reports an error, try stating the full path to the editor executable.

  3. Save and close the file, then restart muCommander. Try editing a text file (F4).